Why are mercenaries so expencive and dont collect resouces in the Alpha 24???

[cowehe8775]

I recently updated the Alpha 24 pre release version where I found lots of cool changes last time I updated it.

However, I found that the infantry mercenaries now cost 60 metel, cavalry merc cost 80 metal. They used to be 25 metal so this is very different because there is almost no point to having mercs if you could just get champion guards for almost the same. Champion guards are only 20 more metal than the mercenaries which make mercs have very little worth. Additionally they cannot collect resources anymore? Are these changes going to effect in the final Alpha 24?

I really appreciate all the contributions to the game and the rapid development (:

[Stan`]

@borg-

[borg-]

Hey, tnx feedback.

The infantry mercenary costs 20f/60m, how can this look like an 80f/60w/80m champion? Training time is very low than champions.

Infantry mercenary in a23 cost total 100 res, in a24 cost total 80.

The high metal cost is fair cuz they can be trainee quickly, and cost less than Citizen unit, and add more realistic gameplay. Mercenaries were hired to fight, so cant get res add more realism and seems like a "new units".

Mercenaries have a Very efficient technology, so can be a good strategy.

Edited January 30, 2021 by borg-

[Harvey]

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. It all depends on the situation and the components you need. Components grade 1-4 should be obtained using an alternative method or method of exchange, as they are easier and cheaper to exchange, as well as almost all of the resources of this type can be obtained using an alternative method, without exchange.
Components of grade 5 will not be so easy to exchange. Their exchange rate is exorbitant and on top of that, almost none of the resources of 5th grade can be mined by alternative means, since they are simply absent at the notable locations. Such resources must be mined directly.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

I wonder if having mercenaries take up 0 population but either having a hard cap on the number fielded or having a cost that scales up based on the number already trained would be a possibility.

[Genava55]

0 pop units would be really innovative and an interesting approach.

[borg-]

Generally free values do not work very well for balancing. Having a population of cost 0 is a huge advantage against any player with a civilization that does not have mercenaries, and the situation only gets worse in team games. Another example would be a nomad or deathmatch game, where you can have a clear advantage over your opponent. Putting a number limit on mercenaries that can be trained doesn't seem like a good solution either.

[Stan`]

You could have a combination of pop count to 0 and entity limits to say 20. I believe @Freagarach also created a ticket for feature which would allow you to only have a pool of mercenaries (e.g 100 at the beginning of the game, and each player recruiting them would make the pool go down until it reaches 0 then no mercenary can be recruited anymore (one could also regrow that limit slowly))

 

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

12 minutes ago, borg- said:

Generally free values do not work very well for balancing. Having a population of cost 0 is a huge advantage against any player with a civilization that does not have mercenaries, and the situation only gets worse in team games. Another example would be a nomad or deathmatch game, where you can have a clear advantage over your opponent. Putting a number limit on mercenaries that can be trained doesn't seem like a good solution either.

Age of Mythology worked with that concept on a limited scale by having dryads cost 0 population with a hard cap of 5 units; to me it seemed to work out pretty well.  Obviously that approach would be wrong for 0 A.D, but I am sure that something could be balanced provided that players are willing to put up with a degree of trial and error.  Difficult, yes, but not impossible.  The question that would have to be considered is if that approach would be worthwhile enough.  

Stan's recommendation does seem like a good direction.

[Genava55]

28 minutes ago, borg- said:

Generally free values do not work very well for balancing. Having a population of cost 0 is a huge advantage against any player with a civilization that does not have mercenaries, and the situation only gets worse in team games. Another example would be a nomad or deathmatch game, where you can have a clear advantage over your opponent. Putting a number limit on mercenaries that can be trained doesn't seem like a good solution either.

Increasing cost and increasing recruitment/training duration could solve the issue. 

For example, above 10 mercenaries, the cost increases exponentially (+10% metal cumulative). It could also decrease by their death or simply with a cooldown. 

[borg-]

13 minutes ago, Genava55 said:

Increasing cost and increasing recruitment/training duration could solve the issue. 

If the cost or training time increases, it is preferable to train citizens than mercenaries.

The mainly point of mercenaries now is precisely to cost less and train faster to make up for the lack of resource collection and surprise the enemy in numbers.

Maybe a max pop count can work, we can test this for a25.

[Freagarach]

#5992

30 minutes ago, borg- said:

Maybe a max pop count can work, we can test this for a25.

If you mean like in the ticket? Would be _really_ nice, but needs someone to program that.

[nifa]

I prefer the upkeep costs solution

(maybe we can move those posts here?)

[Alar1k]

My suggestion to this problem would be to make mercenaries gather resources but at much lower rate, kinda like spartan skiritai comandos did in a23

Mainly because it would differentiate them from champions, but also because it would help those mercenary-heavy civs like ptole, carth, sele and to an extent mace to still diversify their army and be safe from crashing eco

That way realism would be achieved from the perspective that even though mercenaries were mainly recruited for fighting they surely could've helped set up camps and help out with gathering materials for encampments before fights

And on the gameplay perspective we wouldn't have mercenaries as idle units not helping the economy and taking pop space while being less useful overall then before. And there wouldn't be an incentive to make special "merc-only" type of population number and/or limiting their total production number - both of witch would make a game even less noob-friendly I believe, and a bit less fun for merc heavy populations

 

[Nescio]

Currently there are two alternative patches to address this issue:

• https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3665
• https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3699

More proposals can be uploaded, of course; in principle anyone could propose changes to the game .

[borg-]

Remembering that we can bring the two patchs.

Rank 2 + less training time (D3699) + less metal cost (D3665).

[thankforpieOfficial]

On 30/01/2021 at 9:08 PM, borg- said:

Hey, tnx feedback.

The infantry mercenary costs 20f/60m, how can this look like an 80f/60w/80m champion? Training time is very low than champions.

Infantry mercenary in a23 cost total 100 res, in a24 cost total 80.

The high metal cost is fair cuz they can be trainee quickly, and cost less than Citizen unit, and add more realistic gameplay. Mercenaries were hired to fight, so cant get res add more realism and seems like a "new units".

Mercenaries have a Very efficient technology, so can be a good strategy.

borg inventing new english keep going borg

[Player of 0AD]

Actually not only the mercs seem to be pointless to get now, but also their technology because it costs much more metal now.

Just change mercenaries back to the A23 state

[Alar1k]

39 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:

Actually not only the mercs seem to be pointless to get now, but also their technology because it costs much more metal now.

Just change mercenaries back to the A23 state

They are not pointless and super expensive if you manage tradeing/marketplace well, set up metal collection with traders early on, focus women on food and men on nearby metal mines and you can do fine - I'd say in most cases maps are more problematic with the way resources are distributed than the price of the mercenaries/techs - there ought to be small metal patches spread out around the map

[Nescio]

Yes, poor map design is a serious problem. In my opinion, gameplay should determine maps, not vice versa. Easier said than done, though .

 

[Player of 0AD]

1 hour ago, Alar1k said:

They are not pointless and super expensive if you manage tradeing/marketplace well, set up metal collection with traders early on, focus women on food and men on nearby metal mines and you can do fine - I'd say in most cases maps are more problematic with the way resources are distributed than the price of the mercenaries/techs - there ought to be small metal patches spread out around the map

Traders need a lot of time before equalizing their own costs - I don't see how they are supposed to gather resources for mercenaries well. Before this works the opponent can already overrun you. At least this his how I see it, as a top 150 player.

But I agree that the metal distribution is problematic! Sometimes one player has all the extra metal and the other player none.

[Yekaterina]

2 hours ago, Player of 0AD said:

But I agree that the metal distribution is problematic! Sometimes one player has all the extra metal and the other player none.

 

4 hours ago, Alar1k said:

I'd say in most cases maps are more problematic with the way resources are distributed than the price of the mercenaries/techs

 

This is exactly why I made the custom map proposals section. Please edit your ideal maps and post them there! I want to see what you guys want for competitive maps. 

 

[Yekaterina]

On 30/01/2021 at 8:08 PM, borg- said:

Mercenaries were hired to fight, so cant get res add more realism and seems like a "new units".

I am afraid I don't quite agree with this. Mercenaries did work and did help set up military camps and gather some resources in reality. Even though their main job is to fight, you hired them to work for you, therefore the commander had the authority to order them to gather resources as a form of contribution to war effort. 

However, since they are mercenaries, we can nerf their gathering rate to 0.1 so that no one would ever use them to gather resources for booming, but also allow extremely resource-deprived players to survive in a difficult situation.  

[Alar1k]

44 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

I am afraid I don't quite agree with this. Mercenaries did work and did help set up military camps and gather some resources in reality. Even though their main job is to fight, you hired them to work for you, therefore the commander had the authority to order them to gather resources as a form of contribution to war effort. 

However, since they are mercenaries, we can nerf their gathering rate to 0.1 so that no one would ever use them to gather resources for booming, but also allow extremely resource-deprived players to survive in a difficult situation.  

This suggestion is actually quite similar to my proposal on this very post where I was suggesting to give mercenaries ability to gather at much much lover rate, just like skiritai comandos do because this non-gathering troops make it imbalanced for mercenary heavy civs (carthagininans/macedonians/seleucids/ptolemies) - I mean, come on, for example now you build a colony that is a drop spot and only women can be recruited to gather wood on the front-line while other soldiers build barracks for quicker support - Carthagininas got the worst end of the stick in my humble opinion

Also pretty please implement the suggestion made by @fatherbushido on this thread

 

[Alar1k]

4 hours ago, Player of 0AD said:

Traders need a lot of time before equalizing their own costs - I don't see how they are supposed to gather resources for mercenaries well. Before this works the opponent can already overrun you. At least this his how I see it, as a top 150 player.

But I agree that the metal distribution is problematic! Sometimes one player has all the extra metal and the other player none.

I understand what you are saying - what I'm thinking though is - it is better for mercenaries not to cost wood but just food and metal; I'm even all for it to make them cost more food/less metal but if more metal overall gets implemented on the map and mercenaries indeed get just a tiny, itsy-bisty bit of resource gathering ability - then the price for them would be fine as is and balanced - but yes, as for now, I think they are too expencive for what they provide - going champion route is much more viable because they both are not contributing to eco (yes, I know that mercenaries can build, but so can women that cost only 50 food so yea, I wouldn't say it's worth that metal/food just to make them build stuff instead of regular infantry that can do both)

 

 

Edited March 17, 2021 by Alar1k